Turkmenistan oil production gains ground

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, July 16 (UPI) -- Operations from Turkmenistan helped push production up 15 percent for Dubai energy company Dragon Oil, its chief executive said Tuesday.

Dragon, which focuses on Caspian exploration, said its daily production during the first half of the year reached 73,600 barrels of oil per day, a 15 percent increase year-on-year.

Chief Executive Officer Abdul Jaleel al-Khalifa said he was "pleased to report solid production" during the first half of the year.

The company said it attributed the increase to production activity in Turkmenistan, where it has six wells completed as of Tuesday. All of its oil is exported through Azerbaijan. It said the average rate of production from new and existing wells has maintained a level about a base December rate of 73,500 bpd.

The Caspian region is expected to play a major role in European ambitions to add more diversity to an energy market dominated by Russian suppliers.

"We maintain our medium-term guidance over the 2012-15 period of average gross production growth of 10 percent to 15 percent per annum, taking our gross field production to the target level of 100,000 bpd in 2015 and maintaining this plateau for a minimum period of five years," the company said.

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